All The Best New Indie Music From This Week

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Better Oblivion Community Center — Better Oblivion Community Center

Two talented songwriters from different generations come together to bring out the best in each other. Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst’s new project Better Oblivion Community Center finds both artists pushing each other into exciting new terrain. As I wrote in my interview with the pair, “Musicians this well-matched rarely find each other, and when they do, even rarer is it in something so effortlessly symbiotic at Better Oblivion Community Center. Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst come across as each other’s biggest fans.”

Vampire Weekend — “Harmony Hall”

There might not be a more anticipated single this year than Vampire Weekend’s “Harmony Hall,” which ends a nearly six-year drought of new music from the indie rock band. But even with all the wait and the tips of where their sound might be heading (they did have a Grateful Dead cover band opening for them last year), no one was really prepared for the ’90s neo-jam style that appeared in the track. It’s a polarizing song that showcases the effort that went into it, only whetting our appetite more for what else this cycle might bring.